It blends...

So I've realized that since the first 6 weeks of school are fairly the same its all beginning to run together. Um... Filmmaking 1 class we talked about directing the audience's eye to a certain place by utilizing camera movement, character movement and focal point movement. So filmed my weekend project on friday but I didn't storyboard before so we'll see how it turns out tomorrow. But for this week I have rush week for my sorority delta alpha chi so i'll be busier. And my best friend Maggie was planning on visiting this weekend but since I have rush I feel bad saying that she shouldn't come because I have class thursday night, a rush even friday night and I think it could be too late to get her a ticket.... I feel really bad but another weekend would be profoundly better.

Long days for Week 3

So because of Labor day my one class on monday was pushed to tuesday. So yesterday I had a full day of classes. Starting off at 9am I was in my BTL lab learning about all the equipment that comes on the grip truck. We were out on the loading dock and Josh showed us the C-stands, which hold various things and the different lights. We also got to set up a dolly which was pretty cool. You pull out track and piece it together and then once the entire track is level you lift the dolly and place it on the track. We got out kinda early from that. I didn't bring my lunch so Instead I walked to Mr. Robotos, a habachi place. For like 9 dollars you can get a huge meal of a side salad with enough rice to feed a small family and three breasts of chicken. Top it off with their yum yum sauce and its delicious. I always split it in half before I eat though so I can take half home. You see the appeal of that for a day like today- I didn't have to bring two meals because I could just eat leftovers from my huge lunch.

On the way back from Roboto's, my friend Jon called me. Jon tried three times to get into the film school but sadly they didn't take him. So instead he decided to go into media production which he thinks is better than the film school. But when he called me on tuesday we met up and he showed me around the media production offices (which are next door to the film school don't cha know?). They have a lot of really nice stuff but I'm personally am still glad that I'm in the film school- we don't need to compete for attention like they have to in media production.

After the tour with Jon I went into my editing lab.

I was editing my weekend project. Basically Andrew gave us a scene that was about one character giving another character a tour of a space. It went like this:

-the living room

-very nice

-the couch

-lovely

-the table

-exquisite

-the fruit bowl

-outstanding

-the bedroom

-theres only one bed

-perhaps you'd like to watch tv while i take a shower?

end scene.

I knew everyone was going to make it really sexual so I decided to make it about a realtor who was really desperate to make a sale that she would even sleep with her client to sell the place.

I remembered that when I filmed it everything went well but in post, when my character said the line about the shower it didn't have the sort of 'i'm so desperate that i'll sleep with you' tone.

So I was like: crap. what was i going to do? i mean my weekend project tanked last week so i really needed to do good.

So here was my solution: suddenly this scene was going to be a scene form a realtor training video. so at random times text would pop up with little tips about what not to do when selling an apartment. so the punch lines came from text that said "DON'T use the shower as an excuse to entice your client into bed" after the shower line.

After that save I was very satisfied with how it came out.

again we got out early and so I just had to bide my time until genres class where we were going to watch night of the living dead. I just decided to eat my leftovers and play on the computer a bit.

In genres we watched night of the living dead which i was originally terrified of. but in the end i was surprised at how much i enjoyed the movie. I really don't like horror but this i could defiantly deal with.

Today was wednesday and we showed our weekend projects. Everyones projects were really good and I was surprised at what a good response mine got. Andrew liked how I utilized the 180 line and i believe he also liked what I did in order to save the ending. So that was a blast! Then we had our filmmaking lecture class where we talked about movement and how to direct the audience's eye towards what we want them to see. we did exercises again to demonstrate that we got the point and when I was with my group I decided to give out suggestions which I normally don't do. After the first shot was taken I suggested that we try a different angle. It turned out pretty well. We ended up taking four shots, two of them by me and when it came time to show one shot my group chose mine as the best example. It felt so good- especially since I had suggested it as a side note and it turned out to be the one we showed. I don't think it was the best one by far, but it was nice for the confidence boost.

I just need to stay strong and keep reminding myself that I am a student and that I am still learning. Its okay to make mistakes and ask questions. Its hard to think that way, but I'm trying to condition myself.

Week 2- I wasn't prepared for this.

So last week was a roller coaster to say the least. We're talking that one moment my ego went through the roof and the next I'm contemplating dropping out.

Monday:

BTL lab- drivers test. Completely freaked out and Josh was genuinely concerned but I put on my big girl panties and dealt with it- which I'm going to have to do alot.

Tuesday:

Edited my weekend project about a guy who lost his sock and found it again. The purpose for that exercise was to experiment with contrast and affinity- two things that I didn't really understand- but I tried. I thought that after the edit my film came out really well. That night we had Genres and we watched Vivre sa Vie by Jean-Luc Godard. I was like: YES! New wave! french! something that is poetic! this is my type of movie. I throughly enjoyed it but Myranda was sitting near me and kept saying: Oh when is it going to be over? ugh. I hate french films etc. Which I understand some people just don't like the french but I don't think you have to complain about it (out loud) the entire movie. That being said, I love Myranda and I am throughly blessed that I have her in my life. She is one of my good friends in the FS.

Wednesday:

Oh boy that was a strange day. Since I'm in track 2 I didn't have to go to class at 9 but could show up around 1030 because track 1 screening was from 9-1030 and track 2 screening was from 1030-1245. I hit the gym early and swam laps in the pool which was quite wonderful. But then I go to the screening and everyone's were pretty good. A couple of the student films had nudity and different subject matter. For example one film was about 'loosing your lunch and then finding it again' a guy is making a sandwich and then his roommate walks out completely naked and makes a cup of coffee and hugs him. The main guy then throws up in a bag and after a beat proceeds to pour his vomit on his bread to make the sandwich, i think in the end he took a bite of the sandwich. It was very good but the way my prof praised it I just kept thinking: I can't do things like that, thats not my aesthetic. If nudity and grossness is what you want, then this is obviously not the right place for me. Then we got to my film. Andrew (my Prof) nicely told me that I had completely missed the point- which although he said it nicely news like that can only hit in one way: hard. I really had no defense but honestly in that moment I just felt defeated, I felt like the only one who got a bad review. And looking back on it, I still don't know if that's true, but I really just felt like I wasn't worth anything. Then we had lecture after that and we were talking about the 180 degree line. Fortunately this was something very basic that I understood. We did an exercise in three shots where we had to film a sequence and cross the 180 line in doing so. I acted in it and then got to edit it in 5 mins in front of the class. I ended up cutting to a different shot in the middle of a movement and Andrew liked the cut so much that he stared talking about editing on action for about 5 mins. Needless to say, I felt pretty good. My weekend project wasn't good but at least I can edit.

Thursday:

Uggh- this day. We only had Genres class at 7pm so I was pretty psyched. I spent all of thursday working on a homework assignment for my F1 development class. We had to come up with three F1 ideas by thursday at 1159pm and email them to Andrew. So I submitted them and then started reading the Brother's Grimm script I had checked out- I also finished Eat Pray Love so it was just a good day of reading. But then. Dun DUn DUNNNNN!!!! GENRES! Andrew decided to show us an Avant Garde cinema piece called The Holy Mountain by a filmmaker whose name has alot of consonants in it. I did not care for this movie at all. It was grotesque, random and confusing. It was as if Myranda and I had switched places from tuesday's screening. I was sitting there in agony waiting for the film to be over and she was eating it up. During the screening I tried to contain my opinions and my disgust and thus ended up not watching half of the movie (Andrew said we could leave if we weren't comfortable but 1. i didn't want to seem like a wimp, 2. I had to write a discussion board post about it anyway, 3. I didn't want to get to school the next day and people say 'that was the most awesome movie' and then be like damn i wish i had formulated my own opinion and 4. I was going to the SLC afterwards to watch Letters to Juliet with my best friend and I didn't want to waste time). We got out of the screening an I literally felt like I was going to vomit. I was lightheaded and haunted by the grotesque images I had seen on screen and I felt like I had just wasted alot of time. The others loved it. They thought that it was the shit. I actually thought it was shit. Pardon me for having an opinion. Myranda said I was sheltered because I couldn't take the grossness of it. I told her I'd rather be sheltered that watch movies like that. When I saw Sami (my best friend) at the SLC she said I looked awful and that I was super pale- all because of that movie. Thank god for cookie cutter romantic comedies from hollywood.

That night I got home and cried myself to sleep. Like in my F1 screening on wednesday I just thought if blood, gore, nudity and grotesque images is what the FS expects from me then I need to find a different major because I can't give them that.

Friday:

I woke up on friday for a 9am writing class and I decided that if things didn't pick up in the next week that I was going to go to the dean and say 'I quit.' That killed me inside to admit that. This was something I had been working towards since freshman year of HS, and I'm not a quitter. But I honestly was just thinking that I was being a fool. So writing class was just a combination of the little things that make your day worse. For ex, I ended up not sitting next to paige and myranda and sitting next to Lexa (I love lexa though). And she didn't have a pen so I lent her one of mine and then mine ran out of ink and i didn't have a spare so i wrote in pencil (wah wah I know but its the little things that are frustrating).

I went to lunch with Myranda before our F1 development class and we had a really good talk. Then we went to F1 dev in the directors prep room. Andrew had put our three ideas from the hw up on powerpoint slides and then the computer chose at random who would go. I was totally freaking out because all of my ideas were really whimsical and poetic in contrast with everyone elses. Again I was like, they're not going to like my ideas they're going to insist on the dark, blood, gore, and nudity. But when I read my ideas I got a really good response. When I explained my concept for one of them everyone's eyes lit up and they all started to contribute ideas. I felt that they could see my vision and it made me feel wonderful.

That night we had a party called 'disorientation' and I was worried because I don't drink, smoke nor do I know people in the FS. But I drove with Myranda and It actually went really well, we had to wear krispy kreme hats as a sort of new kids hazing. I met alot of people who I can't remember their names, but for the most part I hung out with a guy in track 1 of my year named Adam. He didn't drink or smoke either so we hung out in the sober corner trying to join talking circles and meet new people. Then some drunk kids lit some twigs on fire and both of us were like, uh oh thats not good. Then people started jumping through the fire and I was pretty sure it was time to go. But before Myranda and I left a guy named Ryan from track 1 came up to me and said 'so tell me about your F1 idea because I hear its going to be awesome.' needless to say, my ego flew through the roof and effected my attitude all weekend.

Sunday:

I felt like I was the shit. I was like man I'm so cool, I'm unique and I'm special etc. So I went to church with a big head and I kept talking about myself in an egotistical way. Really there's no excuse for that pride except for that I was up on cloud 10- my head so high in the sky I didn't want to see those beside me. After church I went home and wrote my discussion boards for Genres class, one for Vivre sa vie and one for holy mountain. I was pretty favorable in my Vivre sa Vie post but I struggled with the Holy mountain one. I didn't know what to talk about, the movie made no sense to me and I thought it was just horrible. So I expressed that in my post by assessing how the director told his story. I wrote that I believed his events were inconsequential and random and that basically our protagonist disappears in the middle of the movie. I admit now it was really harsh but the movie made me feel horrible. I entitled the post 'someone get me a barf bag' because of how I felt at the end of the movie.

But then Aaron (a guy in my group) commented back saying that essentially I was acting like a idiot and that my post was basically wah wah wah this movie sucks instead of This movie had value because_. True my post had the wah wah wah but I did focus on how the director failed in my opinion to tell the story. So I wrote back apologizing but basically saying that I simply expressed an opinion. I don't want to look back and see if he responded. But seriously? no one responds on discussion boards for school its not like a mac forum where everyone responds. I don't even know anyone who reads discussion boards.

But sunday night Sami came over and spent the night and we talked alot. I discovered that I need to set my pride aside and just remember that I am a student, I am here to learn, a fact that I forget.

This morning I woke up and while taking a shower I came to the realization that I'm probably not a pleasant person to be around. I need some serious help.

So that was the roller coaster week. Hopefully I can just get on the go-karts this week and not have to deal with those ups and down.